OT for DJing - playback more like a vinyl? (... no time-stretching...)

hello fellow Octacrack-heads!:wink:

so the OT is awesome for loads of things… one thing i’d like to work out, is how to use it to replace CDJs in a DJ booth (as i sold - and miss - my CDJs). so, i’d like to use it next to two turntables… two turntables, a 4-channel DJ mixer and an OT for 2 channels of WAV-playback… mixing/cueing all inside the DJ-mixer

i worked all of this out and was happy with the results (i can give more details if anyone is interested… just say the words!)

however, the one thing i couldn’t work out (when i last tried), was how to playback material from the OT so that it is not being time-stretched… time-stretching is great as a production tool, but i personally do not like it for DJing… if i play a track slower than its original tempo, i’d like it to pitch-down. and pitch-up if played faster (like playing a vinyl).

so, if the OT’s master tempo is turned up or down, the WAVs are pitched-up/down with it… but staying locked to the overall master tempo… (so if there’s 2 tracks being played at once on the OT, they’re staying in-sync)

can anyone help with this? i feel like i maybe just missed one important control…?

thanks for your time/help:-D

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In the sample attributes you can turn off time stretching.

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I’ll add use FILE > SAVE SAMPLE SETTINGS if you want to keep ATTRIBUTES settings.

There is also Playback Setup Page > TSTR (timestretch) > Off
Auto will use ATTRIBUTES settings.

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but does it stay in-sync (to the sequencer tempo)? it does? and then it pitches up/down as expected?

i thought i tried that… mmmmm… maybe i missed it. i figured it’d be a tiny thing i was missing…

ok, well i’ll give it a whirl:-D

thanks:)

Timestrech off, no tempo sync. The original file is played normally. Pitch will modify tempo.
No perfect workaround to use OT like a vinyl, and sync to the tempo.

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ah… ok… so i have tried it then… and that was the result i got… the only way to slow down/speed up was with the pitch parameter… which is a bit clunky for DJing, i thought…

maybe if a section of the pitch parameter was mapped to a scene, it’d be a bit smoother with the crossfader… hmmm …

it’d be nice if it was tempo sync’d to the sequencer tempo, and slowing/speeding down the sequencer affected the pitch… mmmm

ok, well thanks anyway:)

will have to think about what i’ll do then… i really don’t like time-stretching in DJing…

If you use Pitch + Timestretch with it can sound the same (Ex +12 pitch with tempo x2).

hmmmmm… i’m really skeptical about time-stretching at all with DJing… i can hear it pretty well at only a few % off the original tempo…

like i said, fine for production… but on a whole ‘mix buss’ (as is the case with DJing ), it makes it all sound pretty artificial and awful (in my opinion), esp next to vinyl…

mmmm… but i will try your suggestion:) so, if playing the track a bit slower, it’ll be (time-)stretched out a bit… so add a lil pitching-down with the pitch-pot and maybe it’ll sound ok…

thanks for the tip:)

ultimately, i thnk i’ll jst have to focus my time on a live-set and only play vinyls for DJing (for now)… and one day get some more CDJs… they’re jst so expensive:-/

I am not even considering using OT for DJing myself, exactly because of the omission of ”reptich” syncing mode.

Only way I could think of making it work would be to use a fixed BPM setting for the entire gig, and then beatmatch he vinyls to the OT. Every other approach is headache inducing IMHO.

Besides, with the OT missing fundamental DJing features like post-fade gain trims and xfader curve assignment, it is clear that ”using OT for DJing” is a nice afterthought, probably invented by marketing… But YMMV and all that

SC3900s and Ecler NUO 2.0 all day instead :nyan:

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i’ve thought about some Denon CDJs… but am a bit hesitant…

anyways, got zero monies to my name… so all decision making right now is very easy;)

hmmmm i might still give the OT a go at DJing, over the long winter time… maybe if you weren’t playing the choons too far from their original tempo*, then perhaps the timestretching+pitch pot could sound ok…

mmmmmmm… will have to investigate further…

*and if you really wanted to play something at a drastically different tempo, you could always duplicate the file and pitch it way up/down and save it as a copy… i do that anyway… often @ ±6% (keeping it approx a key above/below the original)

I think the Octatrack is far better as a live remix machine, load up tons of (max 8 measure sized) material and jam away on it, do some editing of materials you really want to include from other people’s productions. It’s not at all useful for dj’ing a full track… however it can break the ‘dj’ing’ paradigm completely and turn it on its head, which is what I think its better suited to and perhaps designed for

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indeed. Syncing up the metronome manually to a playing vinyl, resampling on the fly to a flex from a DJ mixers fx send, blending the resampled/mangled/filtered/effected back in… thats the type of stuff the OT’s audio side excels in!

You can also use the OT as a killer DJ-beatmatch-able MIDI seq for adding live PA elements to a DJ set. But as for actually playing choons on it and mixing those to other DJ decks…hmm…

lmao thats a new one

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To use the ot as dj device, its best to timestretch all tracks beforehand in ableton or similar to a specific tempo, which is a pain in the butt imo, upload these to the ot, and to beatmatch other devices against the ot. It would be nice of elektron to include a better timestretching alhorithm, plus a pitch shift to tempo change mode, if they get around to making an octatrack mk3.

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Max quantized recording is actually 64 bars, if you set QREC to Pattern LENgth, and pattern length to 1024 steps (64 bars). :wink:

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I meant more for manageability than technically possible :wink:

hello everyone,

i found the best way on how to dj with ot, to "straighten"the track in ableton - be sure to use Complex warp if the tracks bpm changes a lot… Beats warp introduces some artefacts to the sound when bpm is different…

because some of mine tracks start ambient parts, ive learned to put short peak of hihat into the real begining, where i then navigate the track start.
!!Because i tend to change my setup a lot… ive found that after some larger change, usualy when latency changes, i cant rely on pure render, cause sometimes it is not 100% synced, even on my own renders. So to be sure i am able to navigate the start point even before begining of track /hihat peak/ I add some little space before the track start…

Sometimes tracks sound strange due to timestratch mode of OT, so some of my tunes i save with NORMAL, some with BEAT timestrach (in OT)…

ive set it up so that TRK1 and TRK5 are my “decks” which are neighboured into TRK2 and TRK6, which add 2more efx slots…
1 and 5 are filter and delay
2 and 6 are dj eq and reverb

TRK3 and TRK7 are my pickup machines, configured to resample TRK1 and 5… again 4 and 8 are again configured as fx tracks as previously.

this makes me able to record part of track, mangle it and either return to original track, or reset original state of resampled loop…

i use Zero MK2 to control most of efx values and dj eq + ive configured some buttons to arm and dearm triggers - both of “decks” and “resamples”…

ive configured few scenes on crossfader of octatrack for infinite reverb and delays…

it took some time diving thru manual and midi implementation of both devices, but the result is getting into my hands, and sometime iam surprised what results i get…

you can actually check it here:

cheers M.

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By now ive realised that if id swap eq with filters, i could create another scene using filters depth and decay :slight_smile: as the efx tracks contain 16triggers with fully open amp envelope…

**for decks i use static machines and i have slices enabled on playback setup page and i slice tracks to make cue points…

  • here you should test - loop enabled / disabled - and see how it behaves with you music…
    Sometimes you might not want it to loop…

When setting these cue points / slices and their position its niot always easy to tell the exact begining of a bar, so i try to compare it visualy with ableton waveform…